"No Need to Provide Basic Side Dishes"... Delivery Apps to Introduce Selection Feature Starting Year-End

Ministry of Environment Signs MOU with Baemin and Resource Circulation Solidarity
Aiming to Reduce 'Disposable Container Waste and Food Leftovers'

[Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] Starting at the end of this year, a selection feature will be added to delivery applications (apps) allowing customers to opt out of receiving basic side dishes when ordering food. This is intended to reduce disposable container waste and food leftovers from food delivery.

On the afternoon of the 30th, the Ministry of Environment signed a "Food Delivery Disposable Container and Food Waste Reduction Business Agreement" with Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baedal Minjok, and Resource Circulation Solidarity at the Baemin Academy located in Songpa-gu, Seoul.

This agreement was established to reduce unnecessary resource waste as food delivery has increased due to non-face-to-face consumption, leading to a rise in disposable plastic side dish containers and food waste. In fact, the number of food delivery orders increased by 78% compared to 2019, and accordingly, plastic waste generation increased by 19% last year.

According to this agreement, Baedal Minjok will apply a selection feature on the delivery app screen starting from the end of December this year, allowing consumers to opt out of receiving basic side dishes provided with food delivery after prior notification.

Until now, delivery apps did not have a separate feature to select basic side dishes. As a result, consumers who did not want side dishes still received them, causing unnecessary side dish container and food waste.

Prior to this agreement, Baedal Minjok conducted a pilot operation for about a month on "not receiving uneaten basic side dishes" (with approximately 8,500 participants and a cumulative order count of about 18,000). The results showed that participating consumers could contribute to environmental protection by not discarding leftover side dishes, and restaurants saw a 20-30% reduction in disposable container usage due to many consumers opting out of side dishes, along with savings in time and labor for packing side dishes and costs for purchasing disposables.

Hong Jeong-gi, Vice Minister of Environment, said, "By not receiving uneaten basic side dishes, anyone can easily reduce disposable product use and leftover food generation," adding, "We hope that a culture of thinking once more for the future environment when ordering food delivery will become established in daily life."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.